My Hitch in Hell

by Lester I. Tenney

  On the third day out as I was starting to feel a little better, one of the other cooks, an old navy hand, asked me, “Do you know how we can tell a real sailor from a bad one?” I fell for his question, hook, line, and sinker, and answered, “No, tell me.” With that he said, “Well, you tie some salt pork on the end of a piece of string, then you swallow it, and when you p-u-1-1 it up, if you don’t throw up, you’re a real Navy man.” He did not have to say another word. Over to the side of the ship I went and heaved everything inside me. To my chagrin, the Japanese officer in charge of our group was standing just a few feet from the railing over which I discharged the entire contents of my stomach. That was my last day as cook. He put me down in the hold with the other 496 men for the balance of the trip. My seasickness got worse without any fresh air or wide open spaces to look at and, worst of all, with a limit on how much rice and soup I was able to eat.

  Later I often kidded that former sailor about the not-so-welcome joke he pulled on me. A tall, slender man, Ard had flaming curly red hair that hung down to his neck. For the next two and a half years, he was the number one cook in our camp and the best fed.

  So I was back in the hold for twenty-four hours a day. The hold measured fifty feet by fifty feet, for an allocation of about five square feet per man, which was not much space for five hundred men to spend twenty-four hours a day for a twenty-eight-day trip. Of course, the trip could be made in ten days if traveling at full speed, but this ship was so old that traveling at anything above ten knots per hour was unthinkable.

  The hold was about twenty feet high. It had no electricity, and our only light came when the hatches were opened. A ladder was in the middle, going up to the hatch cover. We found out that we were going to dispose of our body waste by hauling buckets of it up through the hatch and then heaving them overboard.

  The insides of the hold were bare metal walls with wooden planks over a metal floor. The hold was intended to carry cargo, not humans, and had been recently used to transport horses to the Philippines. We slept on the wood planks, which had soaked up all of the odor of horse urine and still had marks where the horses had relieved themselves. We had to live with this smell all the way to Japan. Our clothes and our bodies took on the smell of horses. We would have given everything we owned for hot baths and for anything that would get rid of the stench that permeated the air down in that hold.

  We designated two corners of the hold as latrines. Each day we were allowed to send four men topside who would work with four men in the hold to dump out our waste buckets. It was not a very sanitary way of living, but then again, who said we were living? After a few days of emptying the waste material during the day, we decided to get permission to empty the buckets at night, just before we retired. Then we would not have to sleep with the continuous stink and worry of the bucket either overflowing or tipping over at night.

  One of our officers suggested that we exercise while in the hold to keep ourselves physically fit. We did not respond to his idea with much enthusiasm. In fact, being fed two skimpy rations of rice a day along with a cup of watery soup did not give us enough energy to keep our bunks neat, let alone exercise. The lieutenant commander’s recommendation made all of us feel that he was going to be a man to contend with once we arrived in our more permanent Japanese camp. This man, who became known as “The Henchman,” was later responsible for the deaths of at least three Americans in our camp and the severe torture and beaiting of four others. In Camp 17, he was in charge of food and the entire mess hall operations, which included the cooks, the cooks’ helpers, and all those who assisted in any way with the kitchen detail. In a situation where food was so critically important, his job gave him more power and authority than any other man in camp. He decided what we had to eat, how much we would get, and when we would get it.

  By the fourth day at sea, many of the men in the hold experienced sickness again. By the time we boarded this ship, most of us had lost between 30 and 40 percent of our normal prewar weight. Most of the men still had bad cases of dysentery, and half of the men had malaria. At least once a night someone would have a malaria attack, crying for blankets because he was cold and shivering and a few minutes later screaming that his body was burning up. These diseases, along with a variety of other ills afflicting us, made sleeping and living in close quarters very difficult. When there was nothing to do and it was totally dark, the hours became a burden to most of us. The sounds of some of the men tore through me like fingernails scratching a blackboard. Men cried because they could not take it any longer; some moaned because of the severe pain caused by either wet or dry beriberi.

  Wet beriberi causes the legs, abdomen, genitalia, and finally the face to swell. This is due to the increase of water within the body. To alleviate the pain associated with this type of beriberi, a doctor will usually tap the patient’s body in order to draw out the excess fluid. Dry beriberi, on the other hand, is the elimination of fluid, and the end result is severe pain, which is caused by what seems like electric shocks, usually attacking the feet and legs. The only relief we were ever able to get from dry beriberi was to place our feet in a bucket of cold water and then just sit there and wait for the pain to subside. We later found out that one of the long-term effects of beriberi was a severe heart problem.

  On more than one occasion during this trip, in the unquiet night, my mind would race. Oh, how I wanted this to be a bad dream, a nightmare that I could just wake up from and find gone; but the truth of the situation overruled my dreams of happiness. I often wondered what Laura was doing and how she was taking my being a loser and my surrendering. I worried whether she was embarrassed to admit she was my wife and my lover. Most important, was she waiting for me? Night after fearful night these dark thoughts circled my mind. The daytime allowed us to talk, to tell stories, and to be active within our limited confines, but nighttime was different. To survive I had to have something to do, something different to think about, something to make the time pass faster and take my mind off this horrible dream that was all too real.

  Wherever there are American servicemen gathered, a man will always be able to find a deck of cards or a pair of dice. I soon found one of the men sleeping near me had a pair of dice, and after negotiating a fair partnership, we started a craps game. This newfound friend was from the coast artillery. His name was Silva, and he hailed from El Paso, New Mexico. He had been mobilized into the service from a National Guard outfit just like I was. Silva, I discovered, was the one who had led the singing and whistling of American marching songs during the loading of the ship in Manila. He loved to create funny scenes involving Japanese actions. He would scream in pidgin Japanese and then he would holler at the man nearest him, always imitating what one of the guards would have said. A funny guy, Silva was bright, honest, and proud of being an American. We were going to get along fine.

  Once we teamed up, I drew a craps table layout on my blanket, and we became the “house” in a craps game. We agreed to split all profits fifty-fifty, although what little money the men had was not worth much. All the Filipino or U.S. money in the world was useless down here in this bloody hole. With all this in mind, we announced the game was to begin the following day.

  Within minutes, twenty men congregated in one corner of the hold around our blanket. For the next eight or nine days, things were going fine, with money changing hands ten times a day. Men pushed and shoved to get near the craps blanket, just to have some fun and a diversion from our horrible trip.

  If anyone ran out of money, we evaluated whatever he had to trade. Silva and I made the decision of what an item was worth. The variety of items offered at this late date of capture was surprising. If we named it, someone in the hold would have it. We had to assess values on watches, rings, precious stones, and wallets. As the game progressed, even shoes and shirts would get values placed on them. The one item we would not deal in was food. A man’s ration of food belonged to him, and Silva and I agreed that no one would trade or gamble it away with us.
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  The long boring days thus became more exciting. Now we had something to look forward to. The evenings, which seemed to last a lifetime and were filled with loneliness, took on a new dimension. Now the time was used to inventory and value the many items we had won the day before. Our pangs of loneliness slowly vanished and sleep came a little easier when it became too dark to see.

  We made a great deal of money those first ten days. Then it happened. Either this fellow got a hot hand, or he understood how to throw dice so that he could come up with his point on a regular basis. After many hours of continuous play, he broke the bank, taking not only all our money and valuables, but the dice to boot! My partner and I had fun, and from what everyone said, all the men did too. At least we were able to take our minds off the trip, and in many cases, some of the men who had been feeling sorry for themselves all of a sudden had a new outlook on survival.

  We learned that the Japanese had chosen for this trip men who at one time or another had exercised some of their rights or protested in some way the treatment we were given. All five hundred of us men were classified as “bad ones.” I guess my not being able to take orders and shooting an extra carabao put me in that category. Maybe I was written up in a report that followed me to Camp Cabanatuan. As I looked back on this experience, I could only say how lucky I was.

  The next ship that left the Philippines right after we did never got into the open waters of the South China Sea. Torpedoes from U.S. submarines found their mark. With a great explosion and a burst of flame, the ship was hit broadside with such force that the cargo hatch was blown off its hinges and some of the prisoners below were catapulted topside.

  As the war intensified and the Americans began their offensive in earnest, the Japanese moved greater numbers of prisoners to Japan. The war records show that by August 1944 the ships carrying American POWs were subjected to torpedo destruction and to attack by U.S. aircraft. U.S. submarines and aircraft were inadvertently responsible for sinking twenty-five Japanese freighters, many carrying American prisoners of war. Thousands of Americans died this way because the Japanese, for whatever reason, refused to identify those ships carrying POWs with Red Cross markings.

  Our ship arrived at Formosa fourteen days after leaving Manila. We docked alongside six other Japanese freighters, none of which carried POWs. The first day in port we were allowed out of the hold for two hours. Then on the second day, we were told that for our “health and welfare” we would be allowed to work on a farm, picking bananas. We picked bananas for five days, but we were told not to eat any part of a banana or we would be punished severely. Each day after work we were herded back to the ship and put in the hold for the night.

  Because I had learned enough of the Japanese language to survive, I spoke to some of the guards about various daily activities. During one of these conversations, I found out that the reason for the delay was our ship needed some repairs. The Japanese officers figured that as long as we were in Formosa, we might as well pick fruit, load it aboard the ship, and take it with us to Japan. We had hoped that the fruit would be distributed to us during the final leg of our journey, but this was wishful thinking. The fruit was for the Japanese people in Japan, not for us Americans.

  When the repairs were completed, plans were made for our departure. While we were on the dock watching the ship being loaded with various items for Japan, a guard came through our ranks distributing sheets of paper with the heading, “Regulations for Prisoners.” In essence, the regulations concerned our restrictions aboard the ship—what we could and could not do. These were in two parts. The first dealt with general guidelines that if not followed would result in punishment. The second set of regulations stated that if these were disobeyed in any manner, the result would be immediate death.

  To the best of my recollection, the first set of guidelines included such items as:

  Prisoners should eliminate both their bowels and bladder before boarding the ship.

  Prisoners should not complain about the small amount of food or the condition of the ship.

  Prisoners will get only one portion of rice, twice a day.

  When the toilet buckets and cans are full, they will be brought to the center of the room, and a guard will be notified that a pulley is needed. Buckets will be pulled up and the contents thrown away by prisoners, who will work with the guards to accomplish this order.

  The second set of prohibitions are recalled below. If a prisoner did any of the following, he would be executed:

  Climbing ladders without orders

  Touching or fooling with any of the boat’s materials, wires, lights, and so forth

  Taking more food than his share

  Disobeying any orders or instructions given by any Japanese soldier or officer

  Talking in a loud or mean fashion to the guards

  Walking around or moving anyplace except the hold of the ship without Japanese orders

  No one wanted to challenge or test these rules; instead, we tried our best to comply. We found out that any punishment doled out to one of the men had a negative effect on the rest of us.

  On the third day out from Formosa, a prisoner suffering severely from malaria and dysentery started to scream that he wanted to go out on the deck to get some fresh air. We all knew that the poor guy was out of his mind, but we could not stop his yelling. A guard opened the hatch and invited the man who was screaming to come up on deck. As this sick man stuck his head out of the hold, the guard pushed his bayonet into the poor man’s neck with one mighty thrust. The man toppled backward down the ladder. As he fell to the deck of the hold, the blood poured from his neck wound. Our medics ran to him and tried to stop the bleeding. Two men took turns holding pressure on the wound until after what seemed like hours the bleeding stopped enough for the medics to sew up the hole. Our friend lived to see another day, and we all learned a lesson: the Japanese meant what they said. The following day, the officer in charge informed us that we would get only one ration of food that day because we did not control our friend and stop him from breaking one of the rules. So, we all suffered because of the actions of one.

  For what felt like a lifetime, we sat in the stinking hold telling each other lies. First, we were going to be traded for Japanese prisoners. Then, we were going to be taken to a neutral port and wait out the war there. We heard countless rumors of what was going to happen to us, but not one of the rumors ever mentioned our being executed or killed. That possibility was never discussed, although most of us thought about it many times.

  The days just dragged on, with nothing to do but sit and talk about nothing in particular. By this stage in our journey, everything was starting to irritate us. The men started fighting among themselves for the slightest reasons. We simply got on each others’ nerves. Actually, by this time we had heard each others’ stories a dozen times and were so bored that we could not bear to hear the same tales over again.

  In addition to the boredom and despair, we found it necessary for many hours of the day to hold our breath systematically. The odor of urine and feces from the men aboard, as well as the horses that had previously traveled in our accommodations, made us all nauseous. As the days wore on, we longed for an end to this boat ride. Anything, we thought, would be better than what we were enduring.

  Then, as if in answer to our pleas, we heard the ship’s horn blaring with two short and then one long blast and loud voices giving what seemed to be commands. We also heard other motors and horns from other ships. We felt sure that something important was happening. When our ship was bumped by what we perceived as a pilot boat, we knew the end of this hellish voyage was in sight.

  CHAPTER 10

  THE COAL MINE

  When we landed in Japan, each of us had lost an average of fifteen pounds since leaving the Philippines. If I had been able to weigh myself that day, I probably would have weighed 105 pounds, for a loss of 43 percent from my prewar weight. In spite of being in Japan—enemy territory—we were happy to be off the Toro Mar
u. Many of us were unable to walk without holding on to someone else, our legs were so cramped from lack of exercise and from sitting in one position for long periods of time.

  After we disembarked, the Japanese herded us into a large warehouse right on the docks. They told us to take off all of our clothes and to throw them into the trash bins spaced along the wall of the building. Standing there in our birthday suits made us even more painfully aware of our poor physical condition. Soon a half dozen Japanese entered, dressed in uniforms covered with what appeared to be canvas coveralls and wearing long gloves and face masks. Each had strapped to his back (Or hers? we wondered, as we stood shivering) a large tank, like a scuba diver’s oxygen tank, and from the tank ran a long rubber hose with a spray attachment and an on-off lever. These six people walked up and down the rows of naked men and sprayed our bodies and hair with a chemical. Had we known about the German concentration camps, where people were gassed to death in a similar fashion, we would have thought that was what was happening to us. In fact, we were only being deloused. The Japanese wanted to eliminate any chance of our bringing parasites into Japan. This whole procedure took roughly two hours, but it seemed like an eternity.

  We were then issued Japanese-style clothing and typical Japanese rubber and canvas working shoes that buttoned on the side and had a split section just for the big toe. The shirts and pants were all one size, but their legs and sleeves were much too small for most of us Americans. The waist and chest sizes were just right; after all, we were down to skin and bones. Our last piece of clothing was a strip of white cloth, about thirty inches long and twelve inches wide, with a string going around one end. We tied the string around our waists and pulled the other end of the cloth up, through, and over it like a loincloth.